


Tea and Coffee

by Flexor



Category: RWBY
Genre: Bechdel Test Smash, Plot Spoilers RWBY Series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flexor/pseuds/Flexor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake and Weiss head off for a nice cup of hot beverage with perhaps a slice of something sweet, and think about recent events. Coco Adel provides a piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p>May I say here that I *really* like Rooster Teeth's characterisations? I just wanted to dig out Blake's and Weiss' attitudes a bit deeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: For anyone who wandered in, usually I stay away from the main plot, just filling in the blanks where the cameras aren't looking. In all my other RWBY stories, even if you don't know the plot, you can enjoy the sex scenes... But this story is different, in that I'm having Blake Belladonna and Weiss Schnee discuss what has happened. So you do need to know what has gone before.
> 
> In Episode 8, "Destiny", at the end of a particularly bad tournament match, we see Blake and Weiss head out for a coffee and a tea while Ruby goes to watch the next fight. Yang stays back to contemplate the foul way in which she has been tricked into what looks like extremely unsportsmanlike behaviour. This story picks up with the girls looking for coffee.

"So. Do you know a place on this fairground where they do a decent cup of coffee?"

"There is a reason why I drink tea," said Blake. "They _do_ things to coffee here in Vale."

Weiss looked round. "There must be drinkable coffee somewhere around here."

"Look for a Mistral place."

"Ah!" Weiss brightened up and pointed. "Just the girl we need. _Coco!_ "

Coco Adel, on her way to the shuttle for the Amity Colosseum, stopped and walked towards them.

"Hi kids. How's life? Yang holding up okay?"

Weiss sighed. "Yeah, as well as can be expected. Disqualified, though. I suppose we could have expected that."

"I suppose. So what can I do for you?"

"Where's the best coffee place in the fairground?"

Coco chuckled. "And why would you ask little me about that?"

"You did name your team after the stuff," said Blake.

" _Stuff?_ Nectar of the Gods, I think you'll find," said Coco. "And the best place is to the north of the field, an Atlas place called _Mantel_ _Kuchen_. They also do cake worth gaining the weight for."

Weiss gave a polite nod. "Your sage advice honors us."

Coco grinned. "Any time, Lady. Well, I'm off to the queues for the Colosseum. See you later."

 

Blake and Weiss headed north, and sure enough found not a tent, but a place looking like a wood building in proper old Atlas style. They found a table and picked up the menu.

It had pictures.

Of cake.

The girls sat for a few moments in awed silence. Weiss looked up from her menu, into Blake's eyes.

"I've gained a pound from just _looking_ at this," she said.

"Curse that Adel woman," said Blake. "She has led us to our doom."

A woman wearing the traditional Mantle _Dirndl_ dress walked up to them.

"Good morning my girls! Have you made a choice yet?"

"Good morning," said Blake. "I'd like a cup of tea, please, and a slice of Ub... Ubber..."

" _Überwalder Apfelkuchen,_ " said Weiss. "You want cream with that."

Blake looked at Weiss with a thousand-mile stare. "I want cream with that."

"Very good. And for you, Miss?"

"Strong black coffee. And a slice of chocolate cherry cake, please."

"With cream?"

"Of course."

The woman smiled, wandered off, and returned with their orders. Blake picked up the string of her tea bag and jiggled it up and down in the glass, watching clouds of dark spreading through the clear hot water. Weiss picked up her cup and took a small sip. She sighed. Blake nodded.

"Poor Yang," said Weiss.

"I still don't understand what happened," said Blake. She pressed the tea bag against the side of her glass with the spoon and put it on the saucer. She added a little milk, clouds billowing in the dark brown tea till it became a uniform light brown shade.

"She saw Mercury attack her," said Weiss. "You really do believe her, don't you? She's our team mate, our _friend_."

"Yes, I do," said Blake. "I believe, no I _know_ that she was sincere. People don't get away with lying to me. I can smell it when they try."

"Why _wouldn't_ you believe her? This is Yang. She wouldn't lie to us. She would never just attack someone."

Blake looked into Weiss' eyes. "It's not that I think she wouldn't attack. It's that I can think of at least three reasons why she _would_. Remember your fight with Neon and Flynt?"

Weiss sniffed. "Vividly. The parts where I was conscious."

Blake sipped her tea. "Neon told Yang that she had big tits, and that her hair was a mess. I was going to have a word with Yang about why, exactly, that was a viable tactic to use against her."

"Well _I_ think her hair is lovely, and there's nothing wrong with her figure."

Blake laughed. "Oh I know. Walking around campus with her is fun. Boys tripping over their feet and walking into things left and right." She glanced down. "Maybe I should buy a push-up bra. Double the fun."

" _Maybe_ you should show a little solidarity with your poor flat-chested teammates."

"Ruby's may still grow a bit," said Blake.

"I hate you."

Blake put down her teacup and picked up her fork. "But Yang buys her own bras doesn't she? She knows what her cup size is. So why does pointing it out to her make her go berserk?"

"Well..." Weiss fell silent. "She was _really_ annoying. But afterwards, we shook hands, and Neon even gave me her number. Yang wasn't going to _shoot_ Neon!"

"Not then and there. But she was losing. Do you know what pushed her to win? Seeing you get hurt. When she saw you disappear in a cloud of smoke, she went into a massive rage. She powered right through Flynt's most powerful attack and turned it on him. Yang is _scary_ when she's angry."

"So you want her to mellow out a bit?"

"Goodness, no. In our fight at the end of the tunnel, watching her go against the biggest Grimm was a sight to see." Blake took a sip of tea. "But I'd like her to keep her wits about her while she does it."

"You think she hit Mercury because she was _angry?_ Because he said something nasty to her?"

"If he'd told her he was going to hurt Ruby, he would be lucky she didn't shoot him in the _head_. But no. She said she saw him attack her, and she attacked back. And she really believes that."

"So she was seeing things?"

 

"Hi kids." Coco was standing behind Weiss. "The queue for the shuttle is a mile long, and there's no coffee there, and here there is. Mind if I join you?"

Blake pulled back a chair for her, and Coco sat down. The waitress walked round the tables, looking for her, and Coco waved. The waitress put down a small cup of pure Black Dust, and a mocca colored slice of heaven. Coco's sunglasses gleamed at the waitress.

" _Danke_ , Brunhilda."

" _Gerne_."

Brunhilda walked off to another table and started to pick up the empty cups and plates. Coco cut off a large bite of cake. It would go straight to her hips, but she didn't care.

"Couldn't help overhearing. Was Yang seeing things?"

"She says she did," said Weiss.

"Has been known to happen," said Coco. "I had the same thing. I could have sworn that Yatsuhashi was standing behind me, but he was busy in the geyser field. Doctor said it was probably to do with combat stress."

"No," said Blake.

"No?"

"That's not how combat stress works. I've seen heavy fighting, back when I was with... um, back in Atlas. Thank Bastet I've never been in a really bad fight, but I knew people who were. They were in a hole in the ground while the world was all blown to bits around them."

"That can make them hallucinate, can't it?" said Weiss.

"When you do this around them," said Blake, and snapped her fingers, "they think a bomb is going off and they jump under a table. They get panic attacks out of nowhere. Open spaces scare them. They _don't_ dream up someone walking up to them with a hand grenade explaining he's going to shove it up them and detonate it."

"Happened to me, though," said Coco. "Yatsu, large as life."

"Were you scared out of your wits?"

Coco sneered, and took a tiny sip of coffee. " _Tense_. Little shit got me from behind."

"Yang wasn't stressed either," said Blake. She was celebrating. She'd just won. And that is what I don't understand. This whole tournament. It's exciting. It can be scary, but it's controlled. It's sport. Nobody really thinks they're going to die."

Coco shrugged. "Well, I saw what I saw. So the same thing could have happened to Yang."

"Nobody else had hallucinations, though," said Blake. "So what makes you and Yang special?"

Weiss bumped her fist on the table. "It's obvious! Mercury and Emerald, that's what. Yang and Coco were both fighting one of them. Maybe one of them has a semblance that makes people see things."

Coco slowly turned her head round to Weiss.

"Emerald. _She_ was fighting me. We know what Mercury's semblance is. It's those guided missiles he shoots from his foot."

"But Yang wasn't fighting Emerald," said Blake.

"Doesn't mean it wasn't her," said Coco. "If she used her semblance on me, then fair enough. You're allowed to use your semblance. But if she used it on _Yang_ , then that's an entirely different story. That's cheating."

"But Yang had already won," said Weiss. "She was too late. And it cost Mercury a broken leg. Why would she do that?"

Weiss looked at Coco. Coco Looked at Blake. Blake shrugged.

"All it did was make a lot of people very angry," said Blake.

"And anger brings the Grimm," said Coco. "Who in the world would want to do such a thing?"

"Top of my head," said Blake, "the same people who sent a train full of explosives into Vale to open the door for a lot of Grimm."

"Torchwick?" said Weiss. "But he's in jail."

"Maybe he isn't the mastermind after all," said Coco.

Weiss looked round the table.

"Did we just figure out what's going on?"

Blake speared the last piece of her cake and put it in her mouth.

"Who wants to go have a talk with Professor Ozpin?" she said, scattering crumbs.

* * *

 

"Emerald Sustrai?" Professor Ozpin looked at the three young ladies, his elbows on the kinetic sculpture that was his desk, fingers steepled. "Interesting."

"Professor," said Blake, "As I'm sure you've heard, Yang says she saw Mercury attack her. With Coco's experience in the tournament, I think it follows that both she and Yang were... influenced in some way."

"Which would clear your teammate of wrongdoing," said Ozpin. "I admire your dedication to her, but even if it is true, that sort of thing is nigh-impossible to prove."

"What do you mean?" Weiss' eyes burnt at Ozpin. "Wherever Emerald goes, people start hallucinating. It's more likely to me than that Yang of all people just up and attacks someone."

Professor Ozpin smiled at Weiss. "Miss Yang Xiao Long is lucky to have a friend like you. And I do agree with you that it seems uncharacteristic of her to do such a thing."

"I never trusted that girl," said Weiss. "And now, we know."

"Sadly Miss Schnee, we don't. Either Miss Sustrai, hiding in the wings, put some kind of influence on Yang that made her believe she was under attack, prompting her response..."

"Exactly! Now..."

" _Or_ , young Mr. Black made some sort of inappropriate remark to Miss Xiao Long, infuriating her to the point of lashing out in anger."

Weiss stared, mouth hanging open. Blake put her hand on her forehead. Coco's face was completely still, her sunglasses hiding her eyes.

"Do you mean that you..." Weiss started.

Blake put a hand on her arm. "He's right. Emerald _could_ have influenced Yang, but from what we all saw, we can't prove that she _did_."

"But Yang..."

"Would have a very good reason to claim that she was seeing things."

Weiss glared at Blake. "So even after all this, you _still_ don't believe Yang? What is _wrong_ with you?"

Blake grabbed Weiss' shoulders. "What I believe happened is that Emerald messed with Yang's head, and that's what made her attack Mercury. I believe that because I know Yang, and she looked me in the eye and told me that that was what happened. But nobody knows Yang like we do, and it's _their_ opinions that count, not ours."

"That's... sick," said Weiss.

Coco stirred. "I almost wish I _was_ going crazy. I really don't like it that there's people out there that can make me see things that ain't there." She smiled wryly. "But you never get what you want, do you?"

"Miss Schnee," said Ozpin, "please let me reassure you that Miss Emerald Sustrai as well as Mr. Mercury Black, and anyone in their team, will enjoy our warmest interest when they re-emerge. I have heard that Mr. Black was taken to a Haven hospital, but nobody knows _which_ hospital. We have questioned the medics who carried him to the ambulance, and they don't know the ambulance staff. Both Mercury and Emerald have records in Haven Academy, but strangely, nobody there seems to actually know them. And now this semblance of illusions that has been observed. Loose ends, Miss Schnee, that certainly warrant further investigation. But none of them are proof that would hold up in a court. We have picked up a promising scent. No hunter worth the name would fail to follow it."

Ozpin stood up. "Ladies, I thank you for the information you have given me. I will make good use of it. And now, I'll let you get on with your day. And if that day were to include more investigations, I would be most interested in the results."

Coco, Blake, and Weiss got up and walked out of Ozpin's office. He watched them go, a fond look in his eyes, born from the knowledge that the future of the world would be kept safe by people such as these. He reached out for his terminal. His interest in this Haven team had just increased by a large amount. Time to call out the best of his hounds.


End file.
